Hector Nava, right, with Yenter Companies, guides a piece of retaining wall into place while Braulio Sandoval, left, lowers the piece into place on Lee Hill in Boulder County on Thursday. (Mark Leffingwell / Daily Camera)

The prices Boulder County is paying to repair and reconstruct roads and bridges damaged or destroyed in last September's floods are escalating.

On Thursday, county commissioners approved adding $15.6 million to what the county already had budgeted for road and bridge flood recovery work in 2014.

Added funds for Boulder County road and bridge repairs

Boulder County commissioners have added $15.6 million to the 2014 county budget's Road and Bridge Fund to cover the projected costs of several flood-repair projects, including:

Emergency Lyons-area work on Apple Valley Road and County Road 69: $75,000

Permanent road repairs in Raymond and Riverside: $150,000

Culvert replacement under Wagon Wheel Gap Road: $300,000

Design future Wagon Wheel Gap Road repairs: $300,000

Design future Gold Run Road repairs through Salina: $200,000

Design future Dillon Road repairs at Rock Creek: $180,000

That was a jump from the $11 million the County Transportation Department had estimated would be needed during a May 28 presentation to the county board. The transportation department already has spent more than $22.5 million on repairing infrastructure since last year's floods.

Transportation director George Gerstle told the commissioners Thursday that communities up and down the Front Range are finding that the cost estimates they'd been using prior to the floods are falling way short of the bids they're getting for street, road and highway projects after the floods.

That's partly because of a limited number of eligible contractors available to do the work, making it a bidder's market, Gerstle said.

Meanwhile, contractors and governments have encountered higher post-flood materials costs for everything from the rip-rap used to stabilize stream banks to the aggregate materials used in roadway base, Gerstle said, along with a shortage of truckers to haul those materials.

Also pending might be an increase in the costs petroleum-based paving materials such as asphalt because of international crises that may drive up the price of oil, Gerstle said.

Boulder County has "not a lot of choice" about whether to pay the higher costs, if it wants to keep its roads safe, Gerstle said.

Commissioner Deb Gardner told Gerstle: "You're having to deal with issues that were totally unanticipated" right after the floods, but "it's important to move as quickly as possible."

The additional $15.6 million is expected to pay for projects ranging from $180,000 to design future permanent repairs to Dillon Road at Rock Creek to $4.6 million to replace the East County Line Road bridge over the St. Vrain River south of Colo. Highway 119.

Gerstle said the supplemental appropriation, taken from a reserve balance in the county's general fund, should allow the county to have the design and construction work on those and other projects under way or at least under contract by the end of August.

He also told the commissioners, though, that he's likely to be back again in August asking for more money to cover the costs of proceeding with other transportation infrastructure projects before the end of the year.

Boulder County eventually expects the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Highway Administration to reimburse it for about 80 percent of the $15.6 million, but the county has to spend its own money for the full amount in the meantime.

"I think things will be a challenge for the next couple of years," Gerstle said. "It will be a challenge of keeping costs down while getting stuff done quickly."

On Thursday, the commissioners also authorized a separate $3 million supplemental appropriation to fund flood recovery work in Jamestown, including $2.7 million for permanent repairs to the town's water system and $300,000 to cover the town's share of the costs of designing the interim paving and stabilization of James Canyon Drive within the town.

Jamestown is expected to reimburse the county for most of that $3 million when it gets its own federal flood recovery reimbursement checks.

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